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The Problem of Counterfactuals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

R. F. Tredwell
R. F. Tredwell*
Affiliation:
Amherst College
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Abstract

The “problem of counterfactuals,” as proposed by Goodman and Chisholm, cannot be solved. However, a similar program, pioneered by Hiż and Mrs. Milmed, but largely neglected, can be completed and promises a satisfactory analysis of subjunctive conditionals.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , October 1965 , pp. 310 - 323
Copyright
Copyright © 1965 by The Philosophy of Science Association

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References

[1] Chisholm, Roderick, “The Contrary-to-Fact Conditional,” Mind, LV, 1964, 289-307. (Reprinted with two added paragraphs replying to criticism by F. Will, in H. Feigl and W. Sellars, (eds.,) Readings in Philosophical Analysis. New York, 1949, pp. 482-497. (My citations are from the second version.))Google Scholar
[2] Goodman, Nelson, Fact, Fiction and Forecast. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1955.Google Scholar
[3] Goodman, Nelson, “The Problem of Counterfactual Conditionals,” Journal of Philosophy, XLIV, 1947, 113-128. (This article was twice reprinted, first in L. Linsky, (ed.) Semantics and the Philosophy of Language.) Urbana, Ill., 1952, with the original pagination given, and then in N. Goodman, Fact, Fiction and Forecast. Cambridge, Mass., 1955, pp. 13-31. (My citations are from the first version.))Google Scholar
[4] Hiż, Henry, “On the Inferential Sense of Contrary-to-Fact Conditionals,” Journal of Philosophy, XLVIII, 1951, 586–7.Google Scholar
[5] Milmed, Bella K., “Counterfactual Statements and Logical Modality,” Mind, LXVI, 1957, 453–470.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[6] Nagel, Ernest, The Structure of Science. New York, Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961, pp. 68-73.Google Scholar
[7] Parry, William T., “A Reexamination of the Problem of Counterfactual Conditionals,” Journal of Philosophy, LIV, 1957, 85–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[8] Sellars, Wilfrid, “Counterfactuals, Dispositions, and the Causal Modalities,” in H. Feigl et al., (eds.,) Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. II, “Concepts, Theories, and the Mind-Body Problem,” Minneapolis, 1958, 225–308.Google Scholar
[9] Suppes, Patrick, Introduction to Logic. Princeton, D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1957.Google Scholar